Coaches demand ruthlessness from Simbas against Tunisia

Kenya’s Simbas take on Tunisia on Saturday amid worries by coaches on the poor start to the international season. Forwards coach Dominique Habimana says the team took off on the wrong footing as displayed by the results so far.

“It is not a good start as we wanted for this year but we have our structures in place and the boys are getting comfortable with the new structures according to the first games we have played so far,” said Habimana.

“We are competitive but we have to record wins and that’s what we are working towards,” added the frustrated coach.

Head Coach Jerome Paarwaters started the season with a win against Uganda in the Elgon cup before narrowly losing 29-30 to Germany in an international test, and battled to a 33-33 draw against the former in the opener of the Africa Rugby Gold Cup which was also a return leg of the Elgon cup.

“We won the first game lost the second and drew in our third game. This means teams are very competitive and we want to raise our standards as we have been working towards in last two weeks,” explained the coach.

Simba’s Team Manager Wangila Simiyu supported Habimana as well as the team, saying that they are having a very tight schedule.

“There is the issue of rehabilitation; remember the players immediately after the Enterprise Cup traveled for a camp to South Africa and after coming back they  immediately played Germany  and Uganda. These are  human beings not robots.

“We have to respect player rehabilitation and I believe we have done enough as a technical bench as well as the union. The players are now refreshed and flexible according to our strength and conditioning coach,” Wangila charged.

The Rugby Africa Gold Cup clash between Kenya and Tunisia set for Saturday will be played at 4:00pm EAT (+3GMT) while next weekend’s clash against Senegal will be played at 2.00 pm.